A Precious Mind
by SilverMuse
Summary: Continuation of {Moments Like This}. The Gods of Faerun have seemingly given up on the Child of Bhaal, but he takes up his destiny in his hands and even when his own fear threatens to break him and his love, he battles through the adventures of Amn.


A/N: Another chapter to this. I couldn't leave it like that, it made a good prologue but...something's just don't settle in my mind until I've produced what I feel is good. Thanks loads for the reviews on my other two pieces, i like to write BG fics. Sorry about the delays but I've been in hospital for a while.

Continuation of "Moments Like This".

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A Precious Mind

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~ Chapter 1: The Morning ~

It was the morning birds song that woke me eventually. My face was pressed into the canvas pillow and the spot next to me was empty. I stood up and carefully donned the white shirt Jaheira usually stole in the morning. Opening the tent, I was greeted with a surprising sight. 

The campsite was empty. It was deserted. I looked to the ground. There was no sign of a fire the night previously, just green grass surrounding my feet. It took a moment to realise that there were no other tents but my own.

I turned to enter my tent again to find it gone. Literally gone. I stepped back a little and had to stumble forward again. I looked behind myself to find cliff's edge with black water crashing against it below. My eyes widened and I rubbed them several times to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. 

"This place…" a voice said deeply. The voice sent a chill through my bones. "Reminds me so much of the Sword Coast."  


Sarevok. My brother, the fiend who wanted my life. 

"You have no place here, Sarevok!" I replied. Anger was rising in the pit of my stomach, bubbling over tremendously. "Send me back!"

The ghostly image of Sarevok wavered in the night's mist, his black armour now a deathly grey. "I did not call you here."  


"Then who the bloody hell did?" I shouted looking at my surroundings. There was nothing apart from black water and a pillar of grass on which I stood. 

Sarevok shrugged but his eyes turned to deep slits as his voice turned to a low husk of the voice he usual held. "The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos shall be sewn from their passage. So sayeth the wise Alaundo."

Alaundo's prophecy was ringing out through Sarevok; ringing through my mind like double bladed daggers. I could hear the chanter's words over and over again. 

"The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of…"

"Stop!" I screamed, covering my ears with my hands as a thousand memories; each etched in blood ran before my eyes. The Ichor that I'd seen so many months ago, it was following me, flowing through me; flowing only for me. 

"Stop this!" I cried another feeble attempt as voices boomed inside my mind, voices of Bhaalspawn, voices of the murdered, voices of the smouldering pit that was once proud Saradush. 

"The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos shall be sewn from their passage. So sayeth the wise Alaundo."

The haunting voice continued to mock me, chanting the prophecy as if it were a rhyme or a bard's song, chanting as though it was fun. I could feel hands all over my flesh, gripping and pulling, tearing at my body. I looked up into the dark face of my brother. He sneered but looked truly frightened for a fleeting moment before he laughed haughtily, he was enjoying this; he was happy. 

I looked back down to the floor and I saw blood dripping onto the green grass below. My mouth was clod, clod with an icy fluid that dripped from my lip. I tried to say something, anything, but a muffled groan was the noise that escaped my lips. I brought my hand to my mouth and felt the wet fluid cling to my finger. I slipped one finger inside my mouth but could only feel the blood; my tongue had gone. 

I tried to shout again, I tried to plead but my vision blurred and my body slumped to the ground, blood gushing from the corner of my lips and the torn flesh on my body. I watched the blurred blue sky above me and wondered how ironic this was. The day that Gorian had died it had been a blue sky too. 

Then a pain racked my mind, pulling at it, scratching at it as I heard the familiar chant, "The river will run red with blood, chaos shall be sewn in their footsteps."  


"No," I tried to whisper and I could feel my lips moving with the effort. "No."

The pale blue sky above me turned to a sickening crimson. Red thunder cracked above the black clouds and blood rain began seeping from the sky like an open wound. The rain bounced hard onto the green grass, soaking it through, dyeing it. 

"No," I whispered again, and managed to hear a low growl emanating from my throat. I tried again, "No!"

Within seconds I was hurtled forwards to a sitting position, my mouth screaming out my whispered words and my bedclothes falling to my waist. My knees raised almost by themselves to let my wrists rest upon them. I breathed again, trying to shorten my gasps or at least prevent them from becoming so deep. I was getting a headache. 

I was inside the tent, Jaheira sleeping next to me, her slumbering body turned away from me. The dark night clung against the canvas tent and I knew that it was indeed dark outside. I felt relieved. That would mean that I could rest more, have a bit more sleep until we'd be packed up and on the road again.

My white shirt was clinging to me by the sweat that the nightmare had brought. I sighed and removed the shirt, dropping it carelessly over the bed's edge. I felt a hand on my arm and turned to see Jaheira's worried eyes staring up at me, her lips in a firm line. 

Before I could utter a word, she sat up and stroked my wet hair, running her fingers through the drenched blackness. I rested my head on her shoulder as she soothed away the nightmare, leaving only the memory of it. My breathing slowed and my vision cleared. 

"Shh," she soothed. "I'm here." 

She pulled back a little and looked at me, surveying my eyes. She saw it within seconds because her eyes began to cloud and she sniffed back tears. She saw that I was terrified. Shook to my very core from the dream. 

I shook my head feeling tears welling up in my ears but dropping effortlessly onto the sheets below me. I didn't cry often and when I did, I didn't make any crying sounds. The tears just dropped from my eyes effortlessly. Imoen said that it was frightening to watch, she said it was like watching a marble statue cry. 

"I hate these dreams," she sniffed pulling me closer, and encouraging me to rest my head again on her shoulder. "They torment you. I can only imagine what they're like; you're the one that actually dreams them."  


This caused a smile to appear on my face. She was always trying to put herself in my position even when she knew she couldn't imagine what it was all like, what having the power of a God must feel like. I didn't need her to understand my dreams or know what they felt like. I just needed her to be there for me when I woke up, to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be all right. 

But she did that without my asking. My knight in shinning armour it would seem. 

After a few moments, I lay back down and closed my eyes to the waiting world. Jaheira slowly settled down next to me, wrapping a protective arm over my waist and cuddling her cheek into my chest. 

"Please sleep, Aramis," she smiled softly as she drifted to sleep.


End file.
